Chris Christie: Right for Mitt Romney, Wrong for Young Americans

Watching the keynote last night, I was struck by how perfect Governor Christie and Mitt Romney are together – and how dangerous their policies are for young Americans. One moment stood out:

For make no mistake, the problems are too big to let the American people lose – the slowest economic recovery in decades, a spiraling out of control deficit, an education system that’s failing to compete in the world.

As a 23-year-old law student, I am thrilled any time a candidate talks about youth, or recognizes the importance of young people in this country – regardless of party or ideology. But such rhetoric can be dangerous when those words mask policies that eviscerate educational access and limit opportunities available to my generation.

That’s what we saw last night.

When Chris Christie highlights our education system’s challenges, he implies that he and Mitt Romney have the solution. What have they offered so far?

What a perfect fit with Paul Ryan. After all, the Ryan plan could have cut Pell grants by an average for $1,000 per student.

Thankfully, Mitt Romney has an answer to the problem of crushing student loan debt and educational access: “borrow money if you have to from your parents.”

No NJ scholarship to attend college here? No problem! No Pell grant to afford your schooling? Don’t worry! Just borrow from your parents.

Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan make a perfect group – but they offer far-from-perfect solutions. They support cutting funds for colleges and reducing Pell grants, and then they suggest that we borrow instead. The Republican Party does not understand what it’s like to be a student today.

Barack Obama does, and he made us a priority as President. The Affordable Care Act lets us stay on our parents’ plans until we are 26, a solution for a historically uninsured group. And President Obama has doubled Pell grants since he took office, and he removed the middleman banks’ control over our student loans.

I am excited to travel to the Democratic National Convention as a delegate next week, because I will be supporting a President who gets it. He knows students must have access to education, without taking on crushing loans. President Obama has had our backs, and we will have his in November.